External ear carton



Dec. 12, 196? W. P. SMITH EXTERNAL EAR CARTON Filed April 4. 1966 INVENTOR W/AZ/AM P 5/14/74 MQ Muff ATTORNEYS United. States i Patent Ofiice 3,357,629 Patented Dec. 12, 1967 3,357,629 EXTERNAL EAR CARTON William P. Smith, Compton, Calif., assignor t Container Corporation of America, Chicago, Ill., a corporation of Delaware Filed Apr. 4, 1966, Ser. No. 540,041 2 Claims. (Cl. 22937) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The invention relates to an improved external ear carton which prevents the separation of manufacturers joint by providing a small glue flap hingedly connected to a glue panel and disposed between the external ear and glue panel. The glue flap underlies and is secured to an adjacent closure flap.

This invention relates to an improved external ear carton, and more particularly, to an improved manufacturers joint connection for this type carton that improves the sealing of the carton and reduces the machine problems frequently encountered in filling, closing and sealing the carton.

External ear cartons are well known, having assumed the name quite familiar in the art as Van Buren ear cartons, presumably taken from the Van Buren Patent 1,863,260, issued in 1932. The general feature of the external ear carton is the provision on a major closure flap of ears which overlie and are adhesively secured to the outside of the adjacent minor side wall panels of the carton. This external ear construction improves the seal ing and holding characteristics for the end closure to render cartons that are particularly suited for packaging a heavy granulated product, such as soap.

One drawback encountered in the use of existing external ear cartons relates to the economy of the blank, since the manufacturers joint glue panel and one of the external ears have been hinged to the blank at the opposite ends thereof so that the total length of the blank included combined widths of the major and minor side wall panels as well as the widths of the manufacturers joint glue panel and the one external ear. Another drawback of existing external ear cartons was that which occurred during the gluing and closing of the carton, and was the separation of the manufacturers joint at the open end of the carton caused by the back folding of the losure flaps incident to their being glued before overlapping them on one another to close the carton. When even a minor separation in the lap panel occurred, a leak generally developed in the carton to render it defective.

An object of this invention is to provide an improved external ear carton having the glue panel of the manufacturers joint hinged off a major panel and disposed adjacent to one external ear.

Another object of this invention is to provide a small flap between the one external ear and glue panel that overlaps and is adhesively united with the adjacent closure flap that is hinged to the minor panel to which the glue panel is adhesively secured.

Another object of this invention is to provide an external ear carton having all closure flaps visible from the front of the carton hinged to the front wall panel to render a clean frontal carton appearance having no exposed raw edges.

These and other objects of the invention will be more fully appreciated and understood after reviewing the following specification and the accompanying drawing, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a carton having the external ear closure arrangement of this invention;

FIGS. 2 and 3 are perspective views, similar to FIG. 1 except with the various components shown in a partially broken-away manner to indicate the construction in greater detail;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged frontal sectional view as seen generally from the right and front of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a side elevational view of the carton construction shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a top plan view of a blank suitably cut and scored to form a carton disclosed in FIGS. 1-5

FIG. 7 is a partial top plan view of a modified embodiment of a blank suitable to form a modified carton end closure; and,

FIG. 8 is a perspective view showing the end closure construction of the FIG. 7 blank in a partially closed condition.

The carton is formed from a unitary blank 10 (FIG. 6) of paperboard and has an opposed pair of major panels (front panel 12 and rear panel 13) and opposed pair of minor panels (15 and 16). Outer closure flaps 17 and 18 are hinged, respectively, to the end edges of th front and rear major side wall panels, and inner closure flaps 20 and 21 are hinged, respectively, to the end edges of the minor closure panels 15 and 16, and these flaps are infolded into overlapping relationship to one another to close the open end of the tubular body. Ears 24 and 25 are hinged to the opposite end edges of the rear wall outer closure flap 18 and overlap and are secured to the adjacent minor side wall panels 15 and 16.

Note that in the carton construction disclosed in FIGS. 16, each end of the carton is provided with external ear closure. This is optional, as is well known, and FIGS. 7 and 8 disclose an alternate embodiment that can be used for one end of the carton construction where external ears are desired on only one end of the carton.

The blank 10 and the glue patternon the blank can readily be seen in FIG. 6. The blank includes panels that are hinged together, in the following order from the left of FIG. 6, including minor side wall panel. 15, major front wall panel 12, minor side panel 16, major rear wall panel 13, and a glue panel 26. The panels are separated from one another by fold lines 30, 31, 32, and 33 which extend across the blank in a longitudinal direction relative to the tubular body defined by the carton between transverse fold lines 35 and 36. End closure flaps for the carton are defined on opposite sides of transverse fold lines 35 and 36, the same being separated from one another by longitudinal cut lines 30a, 31a and 43. In the blank state, each side wall panel has provided on its end a closure flap, so that inner closure flap 20 is hinged to minor panel 15, outer closure flap 17 is hinged to front wall panel 12, inner closure flap 21 is hinged to the minor side wall panel 16, and the outer closure flap 18 is hinged to the rear wall panel 13. The ears 24 and 25 are hinged off the major rear wall panel outer closure flap 18. The one car 25 is defined at the end of the blank corresponding to the glue panel 26. A small triangular glue flap 40 is formed between the glue panel 26 and the one ear 25, and is separated from the ear by cut line 41 and is hinged to the glue panel 26 by fold line 35. The opposite ear 24 is separated from the minor side wall inner closure flap 21 by cut line 43.

The blank is folded from the flat state (shown in FIG. 6) into a tubular body in the carton manufacturers plant, the longitudinal seam on the tubular body being conventionally known as the manufacturers joint. To perform this operation on the subject blank, a line of adhesive 26a is typically applied along the inside surface of the minor side wall panel 15, and the major rear wall panel 13 is folded about fold line 32 and the minor panel 15 is thereafter folded about the fold line 30 to lap the minor panel 15 over the glue panel 26. During these folds, all of the enclosure flaps are folded with the major and minor side wall panels. Note that the corner edge of the minor side wall inner closure flap 20 is notched away from the end edge of the blank (as at 45) to correspond in dimension to the car 25 at the blank. Thus, the glue panel 26 and the glue flap 40 complement the glued area 26a of the minor panel and the closure flap and are adhesively united thereto, while the ear nests in the cut-out section of the flap 20 and is free from connection thereto.

To fill the carton from the tubular body thus formed, the body is squared open and typically one end is closed in a conventional manner. Thereafter, the product is loaded into the open end of the tubular body and the respective end closure flaps are then closed and sealed.

Typically, the end closure flaps are closed by initially back-folding them approximately 90 from their planar position with the respective side wall panel and applying glue to them, and thereafter folding them inwardly a full 180 to overlap one another and form the end closure. Due to the outfolding of the closure flap to glue and the back-folding after glue has been applied, there has been a strong tendency for the lapped glue panel to separate from the adjacent side wall panel since the same was subjected to a shear force. Because of the lapping cooperation of the glue flap 40 with the minor side wall inner closure flap 2%), a continuous connection is made across the corner of the carton at the lapped manufacturers joint and the carton must thus fail by tension across the blank itself. This increases the strength of a carton by two or three times in this particular area so that the assembling speeds, using conventional equipment, can be increased substantially without carton failure. After the main inner and outer closure panels have been glued and infolded into overlapping position, adhesive is applied to the ears and the ears are folded against the outer surface of the adjacent minor side wall panels and are thereby firmly united thereto. This reinforces the end closure structure against actual failures and further provides for an improved end closure seal to maintain particularly hard-to-confine products, such as granulated powders or the like, within the carton.

FIGS. 7 and 8 show an alternate embodiment of an end closure suitable for a carton of this general structure. The blank includes side wall panels (115, 113 and 112 being shown) and the glue panel 126 hinged at one end thereof, and further includes inner closure flaps hinged to the minor side walls (flap 120 being shown) and outer closure flaps 117 and 118 hinged to the major side wall panels 113 and 112. A glue flap 55 is hinged to the end of the glue panel 126 and is adapted to be adhesively secured upon forming the tubular structure of the carton to the inner closure flap 120. This reinforces the glue flap in the area of particular stress concentration near the end thereof, and the carton can fail only upon the blank itself ripping at or near the fold line between the glue panel 126 and the adjacent major panel 112.

What is claimed is:

1. In a carton formed from a unitary blank of foldable paperboard and having an end closure including external ears, the combination of:

(a) opposed pairs of major and minor side wall panels;

(b) outer and inner closure flaps hinged to and folded inwardly from corresponding end edges of the major and minor side wall panels, respectively, into overlapping relation for closing the one end of the tubular body;

(0) external ears integrally hinged to opposite end edges of one outer closure flap and overlying and being secured to the adjacent minor side wall panels;

(d) a narrow glue panel hinged to a free edge of one major side wall panel and underlying and being secured to the marginal edge of one minor side wall panel;

(e) a glue flap hinged to the glue panel and underlying and being secured to a marginal edge of said one minor side wall panel inner closure flap;

(f) one of said ears, said glue flap and said glue flap panel being formed along one edge of the blank, and said one ear being separated from said glue flap by a out line.

2. A carton improvement according to claim 1, wherein the one inner closure flap is cut away at its edge to the dimensions of the one ear, so that when the carton is being set up from the blank, the one inner closure flap overlies only the glue flap and not the one ear.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,863,260 6/1932 Van Buren 22937 2,034,594 3/1936 Norris et al 229-37 X 2,553,803 5/1951 Zinn 22937 2,970,525 2/1961 Klein et al 22937 X 3,040,959 6/1962 Killion 229-37 3,098,599 7/1963 Hagan 22937 3,098,600 7/1963 Hagan 229-37 3,140,809 7/1964 Hickin et al. 229-37 DAVIS T. MOORHEAD, Primary Examiner. 

1. IN A CARTON FORMED FROM A UNITARY BLANK OF FOLDABLE PAPERBOARD AND HAVING AN END CLOSURE INCLUDING EXTERNAL EARS, THE COMBINATION OF: (A) OPPOSED PAIRS OF MAJOR AND MINOR SIDE WALL PANELS; (B) OUTER AND INNER CLSORUE FLAPS HINGED TO AND FOLDED INWARDLY FROM CORRESPONDING END EDGES OF THE MAJOR AND MINOR SIDE WALL PANELS, RESPECTIVELY, INTO OVERLAPPING RELATION FOR CLOSING THE ONE END OF THE TUBULAR BODY; (C) EXTERNAL EARS INTEGRALLY HINGED TO OPPOSITE END EDGES OF ONE OUTER CLOSURE FLAP AND OVERLYING AND BEING SECURED TO THE ADJACENT MINOR SIDE WALL PANELS; (D) A NARROW GLUE PANEL HINGED TO A FREE EDGE OF ONE 